For The Druid Players - It's Still Viable In PvP - Still Strong With Cele In WvW - Guide Inside

[Strider.7849]

2 minutes ago, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

@Strider.7849 You don't want to use Shortbow with Cele stats. You want Axe/Axe. The Cele stats are giving you hybrid damage, power & condi. The Shortbow has essentially no power damage side of its attack stream. The Axe/Axe setup is still a lot of bleed with Axe2 & Axe3, along with a lot of power damage on autos that ramps might and a lot of power damage on Axe5. The idea is to catch a person in Entangle or any root for that matter, and spin to win on them with Axe 5. Bonus if the Jacaranda lands Call Lightning at same time you spin to win = someone dies regardless of how tanky they are, if they can't get out of the root.

You don't need the Shortbow and you need to drop the idea of it. There is too much anti projectile in pvp/wvw for Shortbow to work on condi setups. The Axe/Axe setup allows you to land melee, along with the Staff with is also a channel that goes under anti projectile. Both melee and channel deliver the Sharp Stone 10 bleed stack. Most of your bleeds on any build, are coming from your Sharp Stone, Entangle, and Sharpened Edges crit procs.

Right now you think Soulbeast is contributing more, and it does FEEL like that to me as well when I run Sic Em Soulbeast. But realistically if you are a streamer and go back to review footage, you realize that although the Soulbeast FEELS like you're contributing more, footage will show that you're winning without dying, pushing more 1vXs, saving more team mates, and in general getting a lot more done while running something like Cele Druid.

The real key to the new wvw roam meta, is to know when to swap build templates. For example: Someone is on a tower using a cannon, so I swap to Sic Em Soulbeast to take care of it. Another example: I come across a Deadeye Roamer who couldn't deal the DPS to kill the Cele Druid but I'll never catch him, so I swap to Sic Em Soulbeast. Yet another example: My server is defending a keep and they have plenty of zerg ball rolling around inside of it, so I go up onto a wall and swap to high nuke power Sic Em Soulbeast to snipe out Necros in the enemy's back lines. I find that the Soulbeast DPS is most certainly something you want to swap to when niche moments present themselves, which I do it all the time in my footage. But nearly 75% of the time or greater, the Cele Druid is far better to stay on as the general template to use.

There was footage I had recently where I was playing with [mens] and it was myself on Cele Druid with two Tempests. We were roaming as 3 people and taking towers vs. a zerg in that map of 10-15 people. We were straight up winning 3v10-15s, which wouldn't have been possible while using Soulbeast. I can't burst heal the Eles on Soulbeast and can't auto stealth them with CA Kit for stealth/super speed fallbacks or revives either.

 

@Sahne.6950  You talk about "finding the best results" which I don't think you've experimented much at all with different Ranger builds. You can't run just condi on a Ranger in wvw. It is a notoriously inefficient setup because everyone is running Antitoxin Runes, food buffs with -% condi duration, and traits that never received skill splits like -20% condi damage. You have to hybrid damage in wvw condi builds. Wvw condi builds have to have a power tied side to the attack streams or they're just bad, on any class.

You keep talking about having success on this condi ranger build you keep referencing, but I have to wonder what your definition of success is, with all due respect. From what server are you playing where this build is working? And how often are you even winning 1v1s on that build? You can't win only 50% of the 1v1s you choose to engage, as you dodge the classes you know will kill you, and claim it is successful. Successful builds in wvw are the ones that don't need to dodge any 1v1s.

You've made a couple hard claims now that this build you keep referencing is better than Cele Druid, which is simply not true. I know it's not true because I'm a 10 year old Ranger main, and you at least certainly must know that "you aren't sure" because I can tell you haven't done much play testing. To come into someone's guide thread and post "This is better use this!" you had better make sure you're right.

But at the end of the day you can believe what you want, just don't ignore the obvious truths that lay before you. If you click the link in my signature, there is about 8 hours of footage of a Cele Druid winning every 1vX it comes across and dominating all 1v1 situations, soloing towers and trucking across anything that gets in its way. The only things that even pose a threat towards being able to actually kill that build structure in 1v1 are top tier players running: 1) Sustain based Power Soulbeast Axe/Axe & Greatsword, 2) Celestial Harbinger, 3) Celestial Renegade. Other build archetypes simply can't threaten a kill vs. the Cele Druid unless he is unaware and half AFK, doesn't understand how to wield the Druid correctly, or is getting Xv1'd.

To give you an idea of what really knowing your **** about your build structure looks, here is a quick recap of the past 2 years worth of loses I've had on Cele Druid: 1) @hobotnicax.7918 with a sustain based Axe/Axe & Greatsword Soulbeast. He was not able to kill the Druid but he forced me into forever kiting where I couldn't land much offense. Although his build was stronger 1v1, it would not make nearly as good of a 1vX as a Cele Druid, due to the double projectile nullification on Axe5 & Staff5, along with the on demand stealth in full condi clear provided in CA Kit. I haven't ran across a single Soulbeast in 2 years regardless of their builds, who could even get near threatening a kill vs. the Cele Druid. 2) When EOD first released, one of the first things I did was load into wvw. I came across a Celestial Harbinger for the first time and he was able to run me off, although he couldn't kill me. Since getting used to Harbinger, I haven't had problems with them since. 3) There was a day not long ago, maybe a couple of months ago now, where I came across a Celestial Renegade. Boy oh boy is Cele Renegade a lot stronger in wvw than you'd probably think. We went back and forth for probably about 15 to 20 minutes in a 1v1, I'd almost kill him but he'd reset, he'd almost kill me but Id reset, until I rolled into the wrong spot when I needed to reset, had no where to kite, and he actually killed the Cele Druid in a 1v1. He is the only player to actually kill me on this build in a 1v1 since I began playing it 2+ years ago. But other classes? They might be able to stalemate the Cele Druid but they'd never threaten a kill against it.

 

I think you may have quoted the wrong person for the first half of your response, I personally don't use shortbow on hybrid or power specs because it makes no use of power/ferocity. 

 

I'll be experimenting with your power oriented celestial setup on the weekend and test out the results though.

 

[Trevor Boyer.6524]

35 minutes ago, Strider.7849 said:

I think you may have quoted the wrong person for the first half of your response, I personally don't use shortbow on hybrid or power specs because it makes no use of power/ferocity. 

 

I'll be experimenting with your power oriented celestial setup on the weekend and test out the results though.

 

Most of it was directly in response to your post.

But someone else was talking about Shortbow and I thought it was you when I posted.

My bad.

About Torch vs. Axe OH though, you really need to try Axe OH. The defensive counterplay value is extremely high. It doesn't just nullify projectiles, it reflects them. So you can do things like time your Entangle/Axe5 push when you know someone is going to try and Sic Em burst you with LB or a Harbinger is going into shroud to spam projectiles. The entire time you spin to win on them with Axe5, it deals all the damage of Axe5 with the Sharp Stone stack, in addition to the projectile damage they are dealing back to themselves. The burst is A LOT bigger than people realize when Axe5 is used like this. It's like 1shot potential.

The Axe5 is also strangely broken in many ways. For example, if a Mirage tries to use Infinite Horizon to spam clone ambush projectiles at you and then you Axe5 while targeted on the Mirage, for some reason the clone projectiles all get redirected back at the Mirage itself, not the clones. There are a lot of things about Axe5 that most people don't really notice.

Edited June 24, 2022 by Trevor Boyer.6524

[Strider.7849]

On 6/24/2022 at 6:13 AM, Trevor Boyer.6524 said:

Most of it was directly in response to your post.

But someone else was talking about Shortbow and I thought it was you when I posted.

My bad.

About Torch vs. Axe OH though, you really need to try Axe OH. The defensive counterplay value is extremely high. It doesn't just nullify projectiles, it reflects them. So you can do things like time your Entangle/Axe5 push when you know someone is going to try and Sic Em burst you with LB or a Harbinger is going into shroud to spam projectiles. The entire time you spin to win on them with Axe5, it deals all the damage of Axe5 with the Sharp Stone stack, in addition to the projectile damage they are dealing back to themselves. The burst is A LOT bigger than people realize when Axe5 is used like this. It's like 1shot potential.

The Axe5 is also strangely broken in many ways. For example, if a Mirage tries to use Infinite Horizon to spam clone ambush projectiles at you and then you Axe5 while targeted on the Mirage, for some reason the clone projectiles all get redirected back at the Mirage itself, not the clones. There are a lot of things about Axe5 that most people don't really notice.

I had a chance now to try both my spec and your power version, between the two I still prefer mine. Torch outdps' axe offhand on celestial - in the same manner as you can immob someone in the #5 on axe, you can do the same on the burning field - further when you leap through it gives fire aura. Sword/torch > staff as well, both in mobility - it's kind of a wasted set after the nerfs to staff. I also can win vs most elementalists or stalemate forever, rather than straight up losing with the axe/axe-staff build. Incase you're curious this is my build:

http://gw2skills.net/editor/?POABcix/lZw6YYsQ2JeKXvt7SeWaA-z1IY1onvUKICirACMByME84gEE7hXDBuBA-w

Not saying it's better than yours, just suits my playstyle more - able to escape easier when needed. Has good mobility and you can effectively fight in both sets, not just one. I've been thinking about dropping the sigil of strength, it doesn't stack up might fast enough to be worth it, but I'll continue with it for now.

[The Game Slayer.7632]

Celestial is a bit overtuned. Druid happens to synergize with celestial well, but the carry isn't with druid but with celestial. Druid isn't very good compared to other classes without celestial.